The unspeakable happens after Muslims kidnap Christian girl

Marina’s fate will most likely be like the others: raped and tortured — for being Christian.

This is not uncommon. Christian girls are often kidnapped in Egypt.

During the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule, kidnappings of young Christian girls skyrocketed, and occurred almost daily.

Islamists believe Christians are of slave status, and unless they pay the jizya, a tax for not being Muslim, it is believed they are fair game to any kind of abuse.

These girls are always raped and tortured and are told the torture will end if they convert to Islam. Few convert, and their tortured, mutilated dead bodies are thrown in the streets of the village, often at the door of the girl’s parents.

Those girls who do convert to Islam, are then forced to marry one of their rapists. But they continue to be beaten and brutalized by their “husband” because of the “rape”. The husband is ashamed of her because she was raped, and he treats her with disdain and further abuse.

A very small number of these girls manage to escape after being forced to marry one of the Muslims who raped and tortured her. But because they converted to Islam, they are accused by local Muslims in the village of apostasy and are sentenced to death.

If they try to go back home to their parents, their parents are mobbed by Muslim gangs and the parents are killed for harboring an apostate.

What makes these kidnappings even more disgusting is that the Muslim community covers for the kidnappers. And some times, as in this case, even the Egyptian government covers for these crimes.

In the case of Marina Nash, Muslims in the village said she “ran away with a Muslim man”.

Marina’s parents went to police and told them their daughter would never do such a thing. But the parent’s pleas to the police were ignored and they were turned away.

Since kidnapping Christian girls is common, and always ends up in rape, torture, and usually death, Christian girls are extremely aware of worrying their parents. They do not come home late from school or elsewhere without informing their parents.

Additionally, Christians in Egypt are extremely devout. They see Islam for what it is, and witness first hand the horrors and abuses of it. Christians are a very close knit community and they carefully reside within the Muslim majority.

The day after Marina’s kidnapping, the Christian community contacted the media, and went to the police again, attesting that this girl would have never run off.

What did the media do? The media declared the kidnapping was not a kidnapping, but “a love story of great beauty” — a Christian girl fell in love with a Muslim and converted to Islam.

Muslims love stories of conversions, so the story was received with approval. While the Christian community reacted in horror over the media’s coverage, the Muslim community cheered.

News of this story made it to Cairo mainstream media, who also told the story as one of “young love’.

The Christian community then went to the head of police, which in Egypt is the Minister of Interior. He responded:

“What can I do? It’s a love story.”

In cases like these, and they occur often, the girl’s body will not surface because of the media coverage. Marina will be killed and her body will be disposed of in some unknown location.

I have lived in Egypt many years now. And this identical circumstance has occurred so many times it is beyond my ability to count them. But since I hear of these kidnapping and torture at least once a week, my guess is we are talking about many hundreds of cases.

I am beyond repulsed. Not only because the act itself is so abhorrent, but because the majority of the population of Egypt refuses to acknowledge these kidnappings, rapes and murders as crimes. Because the girls are Christian.

Cheri Berens lives in Egypt working as a researcher for the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. She experienced Egypt’s 2011 and 2013 revolutions and witnessed the Muslim Brotherhood takeover and violence that followed.

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